


between the drinks, the subtle things, the holes in my apologies

by calerine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Afghanistan, Character Study, Companion Piece, F/M, Gen, One Night Stands, Sherlock's Violin, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calerine/pseuds/calerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of snapshots into John's and Sherlock's lives, before and after each other. (With a bit of a different take on Sherlock's relationship with Mycroft.) A companion fic in itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	between the drinks, the subtle things, the holes in my apologies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letteredsymphony](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=letteredsymphony).



> For letteredsymphony, for being the source of a kick to my butt to actually contribute to this wonderful fandom. Title and really, the entire fic was inspired by We Are Young by fun. (yes with a fullstop!)
> 
> An infinite amount of thanks and love to Gati, Gee and Sharl. You guys, my heart.

**John**

It is only when John starts studying for his finals, that the anxiety starts setting in. But every time it threatens to consume him whole, he thinks about what he is truly studying for. He thinks about the people he wants to save (the office worker, the college student, the mother and her four children). It gives him strength, a useless and fleeting sort of daydream.

So in these unearthly hours of morning (sunlight straddling the tips of buildings), John finds himself reciting, with his feet on the wall and his head hanging off his bed, the Latin names of bacteria.

And when Harry (thinking John is asleep perhaps?) sneaks in with a mug of coffee, there is none of their sibling animosity – only small, unspoken sense of things bigger than themselves.

*

Five years later, in the simmering heat of Afghanistan, John learns how to hold himself straighter. He thinks about the soldier (the father, the son, the brother) and learns to swallow his panic. He learns how young, and how utterly unable he is.

But over time, the frantic battlefield has become less deafening, and his thundering heartbeat more empowering.

When John marches now, he feels the crackle of sand under his boots and knows -all too acutely – exactly who he is and what he was made to be.

*

It is a clichéd saying: “you can take the dog out of the fight but you can't take the fight out of the dog”. It has long been over-used; John hates it.

Besides, he thinks fiercely, it is not true. Not even _near_.

That one shot tears John away from Afghanistan, and leaves him empty, deflated and _acutely_ alone. It leaves him stumbling and grappling down the streets he once knew.

There is no longer anything here for John Hamish Watson. Only nightmares and uneven grooves in his pension-paid floor from a crippled soldier’s stick.

*

A woman at the pub hits on him.

John is too drunk on his own loneliness to make conversation. It does not matter to Lora anyway; her son is dead, her husband is fucking another woman in their bed.

Before John can tell her to sod off, however, they are pressed flushed against each other, pushing and pulling at limbs and corners. Strangers in a bar, drawn inexplicably to each other’s haunted eyes.

When they reach John’s flat, she doesn’t comment on its size or the cobwebbed network of cracks in his bathroom mirror, or the dried blood tracing the crack’s crater. She only slows for a moment to cup John’s left hand gently.

John takes a shuddering breath.

In the next moment, the flickering hope in his heart is quenched and she is mouthing his jaw line with nothing that could be mistaken for tenderness.

He wakes first.

The sunrise mocks him, reminds him of all the ways its could be and has been romanticized, reminds him of a time he’d only dreamt, lived and never regretted. (He had been so young.)

He limps around morning streets, and manages to draw a hint of peace from the unfamiliar cobblestones.

She has gone by the time he gets back. That’s great, he thinks. John was never good at goodbyes; there has never been anything good about them, really.

He spends three hours watching the blinking cursor in the posting box of his blog.

His hand shakes with the ferocity of a man at war.

*

“John!”

John does not want to stop. Maybe if he pretends not to be a John Watson (or any other John), whomever the voice belongs to will go away.

“John Watson!”

He stops.

 

 

**Sherlock**

There are times Sherlock has fireworks for veins. A spinning display, alight, dangerous and out of control.

Mycroft will be back from uni this evening. Sherlock watches the sky and feels the blazing at his fingertips, his bones shifting in the wind.

*

The cocaine brings the gunpowder back.

Sherlock feels it, as if a reunion with lovers, long-lost. It rushes headfirst into the cul-de-sacs of his anatomy, chasing away musty weights and the discomfort at Mycroft’s disappointment burnt into the back of his eyelids.

He had said (snarled, really) _piss off._

What he really, maybe meant to say was, _I have forgotten the bolting of fire to my head – I know you have too._

*

John does not bring the fireworks.

He is the warmth of a stranger in a dark night. He who sits on the next bench, on an empty train platform and gives comfort.

John does not have fire. He is an old-fashioned candle, craving a heat long gone. But he has something else Sherlock never knew he needed.

So Sherlock takes that and in exchange, sets John aglow.

*

All of a sudden, there are puzzles and a voice that cannot take shape and screams and explos –

All of a sudden, Sherlock is whirring out of control. He does not sleep. He does not eat. He snaps, grumbles and –

When he glances, John – his still, strong John - has not left. So Sherlock takes a deep breath and his jigsaw puzzle pieces slip seamlessly together.

*

“You really should thank him,” John surely meant to say that in a nonchalant manner, but he is holding himself far too stiffly than he would, usually.

Sherlock frowns.

“Who and what for?”

“Lestrade and his help.”

“I should rather think that I’ve been doing more of the helping, don’t you think?” Sherlock plucks at his violin absentmindedly.

“You know what I mean, Sherlock,” John tips his head to glance at Sherlock over the edges of his newspaper.

“Yes, well. I’ll have some tea, thank you.”

John makes as if to say something, but obliges when Sherlock swings his violin to rest under his chin.

“Always so occupied with niceties, John,” Sherlock says, watches John chuckle and starts to play.

*

Sherlock is not a gunshot.

He burns, yes. But he doesn’t burn out.


End file.
